@sjacob1903 Hi my friend! These are great questions. To answer them:
1) Talon can speak to Cyrus in the same way that Claire can, yes! That is to say, it's always up to Cyrus on whether to answer or not. As you probably recall, Cyrus only shows himself sometimes, not all the time.
2) We have not met Verath or Koldis's family. Verath is much older, and safe to say his parents have passed away from old age, but I've actually not ever considered if Koldis's family is alive as it's never been needed for constructing the story line. But I like to think that his parents are still alive since he's on the younger side :)
There are often details like this that I haven't thought through, because the world is so large and the world building is so detailed, that I can't always think of everything. So sometimes little things like this don't pop up in my head.
